Margherita Grassini Sarfatti critica d’arte 1919-1939. Mart, Archivio del ‘900, Fondo Margherita Sarfatti

Study, transcription, analysis and publication of the writings and notes on art criticism made by Margherita Sarfatti and preserved at Archives of '900, Mart Museum, Rovereto, Italy The research project focuses on the analysis of the Fund Margherita Sarfatti, mostly unpublished, preserved in the Archives of the '900's at Mart Museum in Rovereto, Italy. The Archive, acquired by the Museum of Trentino in 2009, has been preserved for life by the author and followed in part her moves. The Fund consists of over 3,000 unpublished documents of personal correspondence, written in preparation for publications and conferences, texts by other authors, press clippings and a rich photographic heritage. Except for the collection of press cuttings, it is in most cases of autograph and unpublished manuscripts or typewritten documents, and it refers to the activity of study and preparation of numerous articles and essays edited by Margherita Sarfatti during her prolific career as an art critic and cultural promoter. The research involves especially the documents kept in the series 3, dedicated to the writings, of 194 files and 15 personal notebooks. More specifically, in this series, the research has focused on subsection 3.3, which collects 98 files of preparatory material for articles and conferences. The texts of art-historical subject are presented with detailed analysis and transcription. Chronologically, the research is focused on the decades 1919-39, which represents the most intense period of Sarfatti in the field of art criticism, parallel to her rise and then decline in the role of "national uncrowned queen" according to the famous definition given by Alma Mahler in 1928. The numerous materials collected in Mart Archive allowed to draw up the first list, ever made, certainly not exhaustive but already very large, of the important participation in conferences, lectures and presentations of exhibitions, held by Sarfatti, in Italy and abroad, not only as a promoter of the movement Novecento italiano or as a distinguished art critic, but sometimes also as a cultural ambassador of Fascism internationally. Moreover, a section of the research examines a significant group of texts dedicated to decorative arts and architecture. The study of the Fund in Rovereto has also allowed a significant update of Sarfatti's' bibliography on art-historical subjects, whose corpus consists of over 700 publications, including printed books and articles in newspapers and magazines. Finally, the documentary heritage deposited at Mart includes the personal Library of Margherita, or at least that part of it that from the villa Il Soldo and the heirs arrived in storage to the collections of Mart Museum, rich of about 400 publications including catalogs, monographs and journals. The work is set in a chronological order of events but also offers a cutting theme, aimed at identifying the origin and development of some recurring themes and concepts in the poetics of Sarfatti art criticism, without neglecting her multifaceted activities towards different expressive form and various artistic movements. Main focus and outcome of the analysis is the most important text written by the author on these issues, “Storia della pittura moderna”, published in 1930, which represents a crucial time for Margherita Sarfatti as a point of arrival of the research of the twenties and as a start for the critical battles carried on during the thirties.